


shifting centers of gravity

by venndaai



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Backstory, Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Platonic Female/Male Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 23:45:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15960116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: Three moments in Fred and Drummer's history.





	shifting centers of gravity

**Author's Note:**

> For the Expanse Fandom Exchange and the prompt "father/ daughter fic of drummer/fred Johnson with backstory of some undying loyalty to each other". 
> 
> Content notes: the abuse tag references the characters' relationships with Anderson Dawes, not with each other. There are some references to suicidal ideation and self destructive behavior.

When Drummer first saw Fred Johnson, he was blind drunk in a shithole bar on Pallas, blood streaming from a cut over one eye. The cut was from a fight with two space buckers, both currently licking their wounds in whatever shit corner they'd fled to after Drummer had cleared them out.

Johnson stared up at Drummer, that familiar-from-the-newsfeeds face slack but the eyes burning with a desperate resentment she recognized. It was resentment that he'd survived the fight, that the alcohol and violence hadn't done their job properly yet. Drummer recognized it because she'd seen that look many times in the mirror.

Drummer didn't hate Johnson the way a lot of people did, but she hated him for the spark of sympathy that rose up in her, when she recognized that look.

“Well,” Dawes said. “What a surprise, to run into the Butcher of Anderson Station all the way out here!”

Drummer had tracked Johnson to Pallas. It hadn't been hard. The man was not trying to stay hidden.

Johnson gave Dawes a passable Belter fuck off gesture. Dawes laughed. He looked at Drummer. Drummer reached out, grabbed Johnson and pushed him down into a seat at the bar. The Earther struggled, but like most Inners he hadn't yet understood that physical strength wasn't a winning advantage in the Belt, that the winner was the one who had the best instincts in microgravity. Military man or not, she was a little surprised he'd survived this long out here.

Dawes took the seat next to him, poured two more drinks, and put a hand on Johnson’s broad shoulder.

Drummer watched them talk, tuning out the words and focusing on the lilt in Dawes’ voice, the golden swirl of the alcohol in its plastic bulbs, the light that slowly grew in Johnson’s eyes, fervent in its desperation.

Whatever Dawes had in mind, Drummer knew it would work. He was an expert at recruiting out of shithole bars.

An hour later, Johnson was dumped in the nicest hotel on Pallas to sleep it off, a card with an eatery name written on it stuck to the inside of his door and a trusted OPA tough guarding the outside of it. Drummer was just glad she wasn't stuck on guard duty. She was too good for that now, she supposed. She was Anderson Dawes’ personal bodyguard, assistant and bed warmer. _What an honor._

In the morning Johnson arrived at the eatery and made his way to the table where Dawes and Drummer were pretending to study the menu. “I'm sorry,” Johnson said to Drummer, abashed. “I didn't catch your name last night.”

She stared at him a while before saying, “Drummer.”

“What would you recommend?” he asked, perusing the menu.

He had showered and shaved, and had an air of self-possession that must have belonged to the Colonel he used to be. He looked like a different man.

“Nothing,” Drummer said. “It's all shit.” She stared at him some more. He held her gaze, calm. “You're probably safest with the noodles,” she allowed.

He nodded his thanks, and then he looked at Dawes, who smiled at him. He had reason to smile, Drummer thought sourly. Despite the washed and polished veneer, the desperation was still there, clear as vacuum.

“You said I could help,” he said. “I'm not yet convinced that that's true.”

Maybe, but he clearly wanted to be convinced.

Dawes smiled wider. Drummer felt her own mouth tighten.

 

* * *

 

A year later, Johnson was just Fred, and when Drummer ended up in a bar in one of Ceres’ less pleasant levels after another stupid fight with Dawes, it was Fred who found her, five hours and fifteen drinks later.

“Fuck off,” she told him. “Tell Dawes to fuck off, too.”

“I'm not here from him,” Fred said.

Drummer looked at him. Cleaned up, in the nice Earther clothes he’d been wearing lately, the man did have charisma. Dawes had charisma too. Drummer didn’t. She was just the hardass bitch that Dawes kept on a leash. “Not the glorious rebel life I expected,” she found herself telling Fred. She had a bad habit of getting confessional when drunk.

“Let me guess,” Fred said. “Dawes made you feel like you could save the Belt single-handed.”

She glared at him, narrow-eyed and bleary.

He sighed. “I also guessed you argued with him about me.”

“No,” she said, which was true. They’d started by yelling about Fred but it hadn’t really been about him.

“You don’t want me going to Tycho, being out in the public eye again.”

“I don’t want the OPA using you as a symbol,” she corrected.

“You must have known that’s what he recruited me for,” Fred said.

She nodded, sharp. All her edges felt sharp, despite the alcohol sloshing around in her stomach. “I didn’t want him to recruit you,” she said. She smiled bitterly. “I don’t get a lot of say in what happen around here.”

Fred nodded. He still nodded in the Inner way, with his chin instead of his fist.  “I can understand your frustration.” He caught her gaze, held it. Fuck his fucking charisma. “I’m not exactly thrilled to be a token traitor Earther, either.” He smiled. “You think it’s bad being Anderson Dawes’ pet killer, imagine what it’s like being his pet redeemed mass murderer.”     

She felt her eyebrows shoot up. “Is _that_ what you think I am?”

“I think you’re unhappy,” Fred said.

She snorted. “Genius.”

“Hear me out. I think you’re unhappy with the way Dawes runs the OPA. You don’t like his focus on image or his style of manipulation. You’re not happy he only sees your value to his optics and not your value as an administrator.”

She blinked at him, feeling caught off-balance and angry about it. _“Administrator?”_

He nodded again. “I want you for my first officer on Tycho.”

She laughed in his face, because she didn’t know what else to do.

“Tycho’s a long way from Ceres,” Fred said calmly. “A few years there, we can establish ourselves. Give the OPA an option that isn’t Dawes.”

“You’re risking a lot, telling me you plan on backstabbing him.”

Fred smiled.

“I got in my current situation,” Drummer said, “because a man like you stopped me drinking myself to death in a bar and sold me a bunch of _kaka_ about making things better.”

“Come to Tycho,” Fred said. “Judge for yourself if I’m the same as him.”

Drummer considered it.

“I will never fuck you,” she informed him.

“I suspect we’re both the wrong gender, age and temperament for that,” he told her seriously.

 

* * *

 

Drummer didn’t drink on duty. She might not be a perfect person but she did her job properly, because that’s what made humans more than animals. It always disappointed her when her fellow Belters didn’t understand that. Humans in space, soft bodies in metal shells against the vacuum, that didn’t work if people didn’t do their jobs.

Fred understood, which is why he waited to produce the bottle until the end of her shift. They were in his office, a little room off the main control room. She was tired enough it took her a moment to do the math, to realize it had been a year since they’d come to Tycho. She smiled, and watched him produce glasses. Inner-style, little glass shot things. She watched, amused, as he poured the liquid in, accounting for the spin. Wondered how long he’d practiced that.

“To a year of success,” he said, raising his glass, and she was more than willing to toast that. The glasses clinked.

“So,” Fred said. “What’s the verdict? Glad you took the job?”

Drummer thought about it. Thought about keeping the workers and shippers in line while Fred sweet talked inyalowda corporation representatives into giving him money that Tycho would funnel into the OPA. Pulling full shifts making sure the station kept breathing and working while also helping Fred build his support base and making sure he knew everything he needed to. Sleeping in a narrow bunk five hours a day, in a tiny room that was entirely her own. Doing whatever she liked in her free hours. Going to clubs, dancing and drinking with women who didn’t ask about her past. The last time Dawes had tried to contact her she’d hung up on him, and crouched in a corridor for five minutes thinking about the vastness of space.

“Hell yes,” she said, and lifted the glass to drink. Light flashed strangely, reflected off the glass.

Drummer threw her glass sideways, and drew as the motion pushed her into spin. Two people, both with guns; she shot head-chest-chest, one and then the other. Blood on glass and plastic and metal. Her ears rang. Splinters of glass and globules of blood drifted slowly to the floor.

“Fred,” she said. He didn’t answer. Her spin took her to the wall and she turned. Blood dripped from Fred’s shoulder.

“It’s fine,” he said, through gritted teeth. “Just clipped me.”

“Stay here,” she ordered him, and shoved quickly out into the main control room.

There was another body on the floor- she recognized it as one of their people. A security guard was hunched over him. She stood up quickly and nodded to Drummer. “Ops is secure, sir,” she said. “Bossmang-?”

“He’s fine.” Drummer went back into the office.

There was a first aid kit in the desk. She knew because she’d gone over the safety protocols personally. She got it out, stopped Fred from trying to take off his button-down Earther shirt. “I like this shirt,” he complained. She snorted. Cut the sleeve off and started cleaning the wound. Didn’t think about the bodies on the floor in the corner, though she saw Fred’s eyes flick to them.

“Think Dawes sent them?” 

Fred made a negative noise. “More likely the UN. Or someone on Tycho just doesn’t like my face. There are a lot of options.”

Drummer’s hands were shaking. She glared at them.

Fred looked up at her. “Camina…”

“You get yourself killed,” she said, harshly, “and what the fuck am I left with?”

Nothing, she thought. Fucking _nothing_.  

Fred’s free hand rested on her arm. “Good thing I’m not going anywhere.”

“I hold you to that, sabakawala,” Drummer muttered. “You let one of these nakangepensa take you out and I’ll kill you myself.”

He laughed, and Drummer let out a breath. Her sense of gravity settled. She breathed.


End file.
